


Whispers.

by epistretes



Series: She's like the wind. [3]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Sif doesn't take any crap, brief OC appearance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-15 01:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1286233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epistretes/pseuds/epistretes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki nears his centennial and still has not managed to tell Sif of his feelings. However, rumours begin to spread that he is ergi and too feminine for being a Prince of the Realm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> Part three of [She's like the Wind.](http://archiveofourown.org/series/74854)  
> Please read parts one and two first for this to make sense.

“Prince Loki makes me uncomfortable,” someone whispered ill-advisedly in the corridors of the citadel. It was almost Rule Number One - even before ‘do not anger Odin All-father’ - around the place to not let whispers loose about the younger prince. Loki seemed to sniff them out even better than Heimdall. Anything that put him down, anything that made him lesser in the eyes of those around him, he heard it and it festered in his heart. Of course, then he lashed out in ways that made the person who had uttered the insult wish that they had held their tongue.

“Me too,” replied another female voice. “He is never at the training grounds, he just lurks around the library. I don't trust a man who cannot even wield a weapon."

"He can, just not a manly one." The first replied. "Little tiny silver knives? That is no weapon for a prince."

"Shh," a third voice jumped in. "Do not say such things around here. Or anywhere. Heimdall might be listening and you'll be in trouble."

"Oh come on, Pernilla," the first voice sounded again. "You're always such a wet blanket."

"I'm having none of this conversation. I'd like to keep my job," Pernilla replied with an air of disdain. Loki heard footsteps hurrying away and he was about to look to see who the two fools were before he plotted some sort of mischief on them. Of course, it might be a pretty vindictive mischief, but he felt they deserved it.

"Sif should have been the man and Loki the woman, it would have fit them better." The second voice snickered.

"Pernilla is the wisest of you," came another female voice and Loki stopped in his tracks, his heart beating just a little faster. "But do tell me more of what you think of myself and of our Prince. It was so very interesting."

"Lady Sif, I..." Loki peeked around the corner after wrapping himself in shadow lest he be seen. He wanted to watch this without interrupting it.

"You what?" Sif replied, her sword still sheathed but she did not need the weapon out and threatening - the look in her steely gaze did that more than enough.

"I did not mean any harm."

"You spoke vicious words against a Prince of our Realm. I would say that is harm."

"We apologise," the other hastily added, Loki got some satisfaction out of the looks of horror on their reddening faces.

"I suggest you go home for the day, you do not look too well," Sif told them, fake concern dripping from every syllable.

"Y-yes, my Lady," the second said, grabbing the first by the arm and dragging her away as it looked like she was about to try to argue with Sif. Which was never a good idea. Just as it looked like they might be home free, Loki flicked his fingers out towards them and watched as they both appeared to trip on their skirts and fall flat on their faces just as a group of training youths - Thor amongst them - and Einherjar walked past.

Satisfied that he had had his revenge (more might follow just to ensure they had got their fair share, he decided), Loki turned around and found himself inches from Sif.

"I know you're there," she told the apparently empty hall. "What did you hear?"

Loki sighed and dropped his concealing shadows and looked the woman in the face. It had been one hundred and three years since he had first seen her in the corridor adjacent to this one and the sight of her held no less of a pull on his entire being. A woman grown now, she had been allowed to show her skill and ignore her gender as she had wanted. Loki himself was about to take his majority ceremony. Marking one's first century was always a lavish affair, but ever more so when it was a prince. Loki barely remembered Thor's as he gave in to his brother's urgings and had imbibed far too much mead, which was something he did only very rarely.

"All of it." He admitted.

"Ignore them - they're just idiots, Loki," she told him, dismissing the notion that their comments should even bother the prince.

"They are not the only ones who make such jests."

"They are not the only idiots." She rested a firm hand on his shoulder. "You are a Prince of the Realm Eternal, about to reach his majority. That is all that matters, not the idle gossip of a handful of vicious scullery maids."

"They were rude about you as well," he pointed out "do you not feel it keenly?"

"No. Not at all. I have my friends and I have the chance to one day follow my father in to the Einherjar. That is all I want and that is all that matters to me."

"I believe that you will. As I did the day we met," he told her, feeling foolish even though his centennial was merely two days hence.

"The day you fixed that flower my Mother insisted I wear in my hair, I remember," she told him and his heart skipped a beat.

"A woman should not be excluded from their ranks just because of her sex," he agreed, flush with pleasure and a tinge of embarrassment.

"As I hope to prove some day."

"Sif! There you are!" Thor's voice boomed down the corridor and Loki took a brief moment to settle himself before he turned. "We were looking for you. Are you coming to the tavern tonight?"

"I will be there," she confirmed to his beaming brother.

"Loki! Are you joining us?" Fandral chipped in. Loki gave a small, short smile. Fandral was the one he tolerated most of Thor's friends other than Sif. Volstagg was too loud and too engrossed in his plates of food and Hogun took in too much. He was problematic for a trickster to get away entirely clean, but Loki was growing better in his plots and in concealing them and his feelings.

"Perhaps, I have much to do tonight but if I get time, I will be there."

"You should come. It'll be just what the healer ordered." Sif told him. "We can leave from here together in two bells?"

"Then I will be there, if the Lady Sif requests my company," he told her.

"Look out, Sif," Fandral joked. "He'll be even smoother with the ladies than I soon enough. He might even convince _you_."

"A pebble beach is smoother than you, Fandral," she retorted as they moved away. 

Loki watched them go and shook his head almost imperceptibly to himself before he headed directly to his rooms. He had a long bath to take and an outfit to settle on for there was no way he could concentrate on aught else until he met Sif at her invitation. Perhaps this next century would be his after all.


End file.
